Ethereum Investors Call on Miners to Boycott F2Pool

Anger is rising in the ethereum community towards F2Pool specifically which is accused of keeping eth’s capacity down by using a hardcoded gas limit instead of a flexible gas limit.

An r/ethtrader moderator, after stating F2Pool is damaging ethereum, asked all pools to use the following setting for geth: –gasprice 4000000000 –targetgaslimit 4712388, and for parity: –gas-floor-target 4712388 –gas-cap 9000000 –gasprice 4000000000.

The flexible gas limit adjusts capacity in line with demand, therefore the sort of backlogs ethereum experienced yesterday should not happen, said the moderator in one of the comments.

Pools, however, need to change their settings, but F2Pool has failed to do so, he said, damaging the network by causing backlogs in the process which should not happen.

F2Pool, moreover, is accused of prioritizing their own transactions during the Status ICO sale, jumping the queue over other investors in a way many see as reckless.

Ethereum’s current hashrate distribution – image from etherchain.

Although F2Pool currently has around 26% of the network’s hardware, none of it belong to them, with F2Pool so being a literal pooling of hardware by many small miners scattered across China and beyond.

They are a small operation with a handful of employees, but have often caused controversy, including during the DAO hardfork when they did not hold a miners vote and did not move even once the fork had been implemented by all other miners until they in effect had no choice.

Some suggest they are bitcoin maximalists, with indications they may be strong supporters of Bitcoin Core, while others look forward to Proof of Stake when validation is given to ethereum holders.

Proof of Stake, however, appears unlikely this year as ethereum is still waiting for the Metropolis upgrade, which includes a number of new features such as potentially Zcash like privacy.

After that upgrade goes through, which might be during autumn or winter, Proof of Stake is then to be deployed with perhaps optimistic estimates of summer next year.

These estimates may change in either direction, but as the Ethereum Foundation now holds nearly half a billion dollars worth of eth and other currencies, they may hire more developers to speed up the process.

However, blockchain talent is in very short supply currently while being in very high demand. Money, therefore, is unlikely to be the primary consideration, but skill, as we wait for the new generation to acquire the necessary blockchain knowledge with many universities now starting to consider offering courses.